Here, the “Smart grid technologies” that make use of the information and communications technology and incorporate power consumers (hereinafter, simply referred to as consumers) to effectively control the electric power draw attention.
As an application example of the smart grid technologies, there is a method of remotely instructing power control carried out at a consumer end. For example, there has been proposed a method for notifying the consumer, from the electric power company, of the control information for restricting power consumption at a consumer end, during peak demand of electric power (see Patent Document 1). According to such a method, along with a reduction in the cost of power generation of the electric generation plant, stable operation of the electric generation plant can also be achieved.